1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to stiff-paged board books with spacers between successive leaves to facilitate page turning by young children.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is widely recognized that young children lack the manual dexterity required to turn pages in standard books comprised of thin sheets of paper. For this reason, it is common practice to manufacture young children's books from relatively thick, rigid cardboard leaves. A typical example of such board books is Big Bird's Color Game (copyright .COPYRGT. 1980 Children's Television Workshop, Western Publishing Company, Inc., Racine, Wisc. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 79-67616) which has seven leaves each 0.045 inches thick. The practice of fabricating books from thick, stiff pages alleviates, but does not eliminate, children's difficulties in selecting, fingering, and turning individual pages. Pages stick together and children often turn several pages at once rather than one at a time.
A variety of prior art methods have been developed to facilitate page location and turning in books and indices. U.S. Pat. No. 511,339 describes a book composed of leaves each having a small portion cut out from the edge opposite the edge of the book binding. The cut-out regions become larger, in the direction parallel to the edge of the book binding, on successive leaves so that a small part of each leaf projects beyond all of the leaves beneath it. Alternately, the cut-out regions are of constant size and shape, but are displaced vertically on successive pages. Both constructions effectively create a small tab on each leaf which can be grasped by the reader without interference from leaves of the book beneath it. These approaches are effective only for readers capable of identifying the presence and purpose of the tab region of each leaf, and with sufficient manual dexterity and eye-hand coordination to grasp this small area of the leaf when turning the page. They do not reduce the probability of pages sticking together. Further, such designs incur increased manufacturing costs because each sheet must be cut differently.
U.S. Pat. No. 648,476 describes an index book whose leaves have rounded stubs projecting from the open book edge. Stubs on successive leaves are displaced along the length of the edge so that each leaf offers a small tab which can be labeled for identification and grasped without interference from underlying leaves. The stubs partially overlap on successive leaves to provide mechanical support that prevents their corners from being turned up. As in the patent cited previously, this design provides only a small tab area to be grasped, and requires a degree of manual dexterity and eye-hand coordination not developed in young children.
Of possible general relevance to the invention are U.S. Pat. Nos. 283,383; 306,318; 1,311,733; and 1,404,541. These describe methods to provide regions on selected leaves in conventional books, fan-folded books, and index books for indexical text to be printed, such as alphabetical or subject headings. This is accomplished by steadily increasing the leaf size on successive pages, or by cutting out segmental recesses in several leaves preceding the leaves upon which the indexical text is printed. Such configurations are designed primarily to facilitate the rapid visual location of a desired book section by ensuring that all indexical text printed on the leaves is visible simultaneously. They offer some improvement in the ease of grasping a desired page for readers with mature eye-hand coordination and reading ability, compared to standard books with leaves of constant size and shape.
A satisfactory solution to the difficulties experienced by young children turning pages in stiff-paged board books, which addresses their limited manual dexterity and eye-hand coordination, is not found in the prior art.